Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

dinkleberg

It’s a fun book. Definitely worth a read.

frankfrank13

I have not read this book. I've been avoiding it for a while for the dumbest possible reason, which is that I only associate this book with SWE's.

HardwareLust

Good timing, the Kindle version is $1.99 right now.

SendItUp

Loved this book. Definitely a mind trip

Schmerika

Nice review; covers all the best points of the book, and its place in the world, without too many spoilers.

AnotherGoodName

I wonder if this is for the rewrite or the first version. I read the first version and thought the first half was good and that the second half felt clunky. To the point where i don’t recommend it to anyone (not a huge negative, there’s just better books out there).

yakattak

Crazy timing. My copy of this is being delivered today from the local bookshop. Great review.

xnx

24 days ago: Sci-Fi Short Film “There Is No Antimemetics Division” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47363133

gostsamo

TBH, the ending of Ra was a big letdown for me and though I like the small stories, I have the feeling that the author has issue building larger arcs. Still curious about this one and might read it just for the premise.

grimgrin

You can read the original here https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub There is also the rough draft. I've only read the wiki and the first draft of book Oddly I gifted the actual book away before reading it (I can buy it again, I thought)

scrumbledober

It's surely not a great book and if you are someone who reads a book every few months i wouldn't recommend it. It's very weird and different and fun, though. I suggest it for people who read a lot of sci-fi and are looking for something that doesn't feel the same as 10 other books they've already read.

jmgimeno

Couldn't finish it. I suppose it was not for me.

cws

This article says “Book Review:” but then doesn’t provide the title of a book. I’m confused. :)

munificent

I liked this one a lot. If you like weird fiction and enjoyed Jeff Vandermeer's Annhilation, there's a good chance you'll like this. If you don't like weird fiction, odds are you'll bounce off it.

jppope

The book was good but I struggled to finish it. You as a reader are encouraged to read because the ideas are so good but then it becomes hard to endure through to whatever resolution was waiting. For those unfamiliar, it will feel something like Momento - you start to feel yourself changing as you work through it. Worth a go for anyone looking for something different.

EliRivers

The core conceit lent itself so well to a (subverted) introductory "As you know" chapter that I didn't even notice it until I'd read it. Bravo for that alone. That said, from the review: "open source maintainership as cosmic horror." Genuine laugh.

aaroninsf

I read this. It's got some provocative ideas, which Stephen foregrounds. It's got a great hook, and like most writing incubated under circumstances like this, it leans hard into polished sharp introduction into a well-considered world with a very specific flavor. It's also—no better way to put it—crappy as a novel. It's not because the author can't string sentences together. It's because that's not what makes a novel function as a novel. Epic opening and premise establishment: 10/10 Nice "plot twist", predictable in its inevitability if not its specifics; conforms to genre: 7/10 Narrative arc: 2/10 Ability to sustain meaningful tension and interest while working through the de rigeur mechanics of filling hundreds of pages: 1/10 I get that there is a new readership with different expectations and styles of reading. (Looking at you tiktok; looking at you Dungeon Crawler Carl; looking at most successful YA fiction especially that which gets SPICEY and is released in 8-book series with a new volume every 11 months) If you're silverback and relish long-form fiction as previously conceived: set expectations accordingly.

mjburgess

I dislike the ending, at least of v2. In it, the author basically gives a fleshed out (christian, neoplatonist) metaphysics to the world he's created which basically amounts to: heaven exists, humans win against the devil, etc. And the ending itself is a self-conscious version of an ascension narrative. It's a very 90deg turn ending to a book otherwise more interested in a world in which heaven is never accessible.

gmuslera

It was a great book, but this review of it have its own value.

throw4847285

This review is just a plot synopsis. There are no quotes from the book to give me a sense of the quality of the writing. The review feels targeted at somebody who is already bought into the premise, not somebody from the outside who wants to know if "There Is No Antimemetics Division" is a good book or not. In that sense, it totally fails as a book review.